“A little,” I admitted. “Last time I was in the water wasn’t a great swim. Got caught up in the storm a few weeks back.”
“And yet you’re still coming out here,” they said, swimming a little closer. I waded deeper, wanting to get near enough to feel the buoyancy of a swim. To get close enough for another casual brush, another casual touch.
I played with fire here. Ursuline wasn’t the person I was engaged to marry. In fact, they were bound to this family.
And yet, I couldn’t seem to keep away from them. Each scrap of attention offered a balm to my battered soul. I hadn’t realized how touch starved, how attention starved I’d been until they delivered those careful brushes, those long, intent looks. Under their gaze, I bloomed in a way I hadn’t understood was possible.
Ursuline shifted nearer, their movements so fast I almost didn’t catch them. The moonlight accentuated their pale skin, their defined muscles. Their pecs were solid, their nipples a darker shade than the rest of their skin, and heat roared through me. They weren’t even wearing a scrap of clothing.
My cock perked to attention, even with the cold water I waded through, and I chewed on my lower lip until I tasted blood, trying to keep a hold of myself. Having this sort of reaction to Ursuline wasn’t right. I was engaged to be married to Arielle. However, Arielle didn’t seem to care in the slightest about getting to know me more. And since Ursuline had first picked me up, they’d offered solace, comfort, things I’d been craving for so long.
The water reached my shoulders at this point, and I floated in place, enjoying the bob and sway from the gentler currents that came into the bay. This was a better return to the water than facing Breakneck Beach again, after my near brush with death.
“Do you always swim out in the bay?” I asked, my feet lifting off the ground with a bigger wave.
“The ocean too,” Ursuline said, so close now that their tentacles could easily brush me. Fuck, I wanted them to. The urge to feel their touch raged through me, stronger than even the clutch of the water surrounding me. “But I’ve taken to nightly swims out here for a long while.”
“Why the night?” I asked. I’d always been more of a sunshine person, craving the warmth of the sand, the feel of the sun pulsing at my back.
“It’s quieter,” Ursuline said. “A peace exists at night that I could never find during the day.”
They weren’t wrong. A sense of the forbidden had filtered through me approaching the beach at night, and it only amplified as I swam beside Ursuline in the water. And yet, despite the velvet darkness surrounding us, when I stared up at the sky, those stars glittered like the orichalcum beneath the sea, with an unearthly glow.
“I can see that,” I said, lifting my arm for a lazy stroke through the water. I dunked my head under, and the caress of the water around me caused some of the pressure of the thoughts and worries circulating through my brain to ease. When I emerged again, I’d moved even closer to Ursuline, mere feet from them. Their tentacle brushed along my leg, and rather than jumping away, I stayed still. The sensation sent a silent thrill through me, an endorphin rush I craved with all my might.
I bobbed in place, trying not to stare at them, even though the pressure of their gaze made me shiver. When I glanced up, they watched me carefully, their dark eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Their silver hair was plastered to their head from the water, and the sharp angles of their jaw, the noble arch of their nose lent them an air of regality that made me want to fall to my knees. Their hungry stare kept me pinned in place, and the breath snagged in my throat.
Then they brushed their tentacle across my leg again, on purpose this time.
Electricity pulsed through my veins, and I sucked in a sharp breath. The salt-soaked air was heavy, charged, and I floated in the water, craving more, more, more.
“You don’t flinch,” they noted.
I tilted my head to the side. “Why would I?”
“Most humans do,” they said. “Even if they’re tolerant of monsters, they’re startled by the differences between us, uncertain about them. Yet you don’t react the same way.”
“Differences are beautiful,” I said. “If I painted the life my parents wanted of me, it’d be a muted palette and a dry and stark picture, void of emotion. However, capturing Peregrine City itself? The riot of color, of shapes, of contrasts create such a breathtaking composition.”
They brushed their tentacle around my arm this time, and they rested it there. The solid feel, even as I bobbed in the water, calmed me like little else did, all while setting my blood afire.
“You’ve got a beautiful mind,” they said, their voice low, throaty. They shifted a little closer so mere inches separated us, their tentacle resting on my arm still. The urge to run my fingers across it, to touch them in return, rose up ferociously. A wan smile danced upon their lips and glittered in their eyes as they glanced between my face and where their tentacle and my arm met. “I can see the curiosity in your gaze. You’re free to touch back.”
Heat flooded through me in a fierce sweep, and even the chill of the surrounding water couldn’t dampen it. The Triton Estate was illuminated in the distance by a few spotlights, some cozy glows emanating from certain rooms, but Arielle had headed out after dinner to the clubs in Peregrine City. Again, I hadn’t been invited.
Touching Ursuline back felt like crossing a line, and yet, I couldn’t help but reach out.
My fingertips brushed against the cool tentacle that wrapped around my wrist. They gave it a light squeeze, and lust rocketed through me. The idea of being trapped by them, at their mercy… I closed my eyes and ran my fingers along the slick surface of their tentacle, surprisingly smooth but a different texture thanhuman skin. Already, I could pick out the types of brushes I’d want to use, the paint to convey it on canvas.
The suckers on the underside twitched at my perusal, just as smooth but perfect circles I couldn’t help but trace. A hitched breath sounded, and I opened my eyes to see Ursuline mere inches before me. They loomed in a way that thrilled me, and their dark gaze blazed with a raw, unrestrained hunger. They looked like they wanted to devour, to consume, and being their focus was an undeniably new feeling.
I’d grown so used to being invisible or a disappointment to my parents, and even when I’d taken lovers they’d been tepid affairs, most more concerned with a quick lay—whether they fucked me or I fucked them. My whole body hummed as I continued to trace the circles of each sucker along the tentacle they’d offered me. Ursuline’s breath came out more rapidly, choppier, and a powerful creature like them giving me this much free rein of their body filled me with a bubbling, heady feeling.
“You keep doing that, and you’ll land yourself in trouble,” Ursuline said, their voice harsh, ragged, and low.
I paused mid-stroke. “Sorry,” I apologized, letting go of their tentacle. Still, they didn’t unwrap it from my wrist, and relief flushed through me. I could imagine my limbs being restrained like this, bound at their mercy. Lust heated me up from the inside out.
“No need for apology, sunshine,” they stated, a spark in their gaze that held me captive. “Just a warning not to bite off more than you’re prepared for.” The sensual purr to their words stroked at my skin, and between that and the hold they had on my wrist, I launched into overdrive. All too easily I could imagine surrendering to them in every way, letting them take me over, consume me.
